Our First Pre-Natal Class

Seven couples, plus a younger girl with her mother, sat around six tables in a designated hall at a certain sports centre in a certain community that spawned a certain poorly-mustachioed NHL hockey player. In Canada. Aside from the younger (20-ish) girl and her mom, we all looked to be in the same late-20s, early-30s age group. Three of the guys wore ball caps, myself included. A few of the women, their bellies all rotund to varying degrees, wore jogging pants.

After some nervous introductions, the nurse leading the session asked us to state our name, due date, and anything we might be nervous or excited about. Not surprisingly, everyone had similar due dates (late fall). More surprisingly, no one said they were scared of delivery or anxious about the health of the baby, but at least three couples (not including us) were nervous about how their pets would react. This is telling of something I'm sure...

Following this, we were asked to get into groups and fill out a questionnaire. According to Terri, my body language at this point suggested I was pretty unhappy, which is true as I didn't expect to have to socialize. Socializing with strangers jives with the mildly-autistic engineer guy who controls my brain, tongue and unconscious body movements. So I probably looked like a dick.

But the world did not collapse onto me, everyone was nice, and our little social activity was rewarded with a 15-minute film about fetal development - featuring lots of impressive footage of a fetus being poked by one of them laproscopic cameras and a lovely (read "horrifying") shot of a baby bursting forth from a bloody vag that I should probably accustom myself to seeing. I learned two cool new words too - vernix (the thin waxy film that covers the fetus, or, "baby cheese") and lanugo (werewolf-y fetus hair).

In the end, we learned that you should not do drugs or drink or smoke while pregnant (hopefully this was not news to anyone) and it is okay to eat chile. So there. Classes continue in July.

Oh by the way, Terri is preggers.